Another Word for Rival
by TwilightRein
Summary: While waiting for Akira to come over his house, Hikaru can't help but wonder about his relationship with his rival. HikaruxAkira. Oneshot.


**Hello~ **

**I've always wanted to write a Hikago fanfic. I just recently finished the anime and manga so I thought, hey, why not give it a shot. This also served as a purpose to help me get over a writing slump. I've been busy with Siren's Call, it is my 1st multichapted fic that's more than 10 chapters. Hopefully, I get over my slump soon. Anywho, I'm a big fan of HikaruxAkira. I thought I start with them since it's fun to write the dialog between them. **

**Disclaimer Time! : I make no profit of this fanfic. Characters belong to Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata (whom I love his art style greatly). I make this for the entertainment of myself and for others.  
Warnings: Fluff maybe? It's a cute little oneshot. **

**Now then, enjoy! **

* * *

A word never looked so strange on a piece of paper.

Shindo Hikaru stared at the paper with a look more of curiosity than uncertainty. He didn't now English well enough but he _just_ enough to be able to recognize simple words. Plus, he always had an English-to-Japanese dictionary…somewhere around his room. He grumbled and hummed as he mulled over the word.

Rival; spelled out as neatly as he could write it in English. By definition, a rival was a person that competes against another. There were other, more wordy, definitions of the word but Hikaru already knew what a rival was and who it was. Touya Akira was his rival. Touya would always be his rival and Hikaru would always be Touya's rival. There was no changing that fact. Hikaru sighed as he continued to stare a hole at the piece of paper. He wasn't even sure why he had stopped going over the Kifu of Touya's latest match in the Honinbo preliminaries. It was just a thought that kept gnawing at his mind until he finally decided he had to stop and get it out of his system. Hikaru grabbed the pen and just underneath the word rival, he wrote, in English again, lover.

He stared at the word and suddenly blushed.

"What am I doing?" wondered Hikaru loudly. He tapped his pen against his desk as he looked at the two words. Rival and lover. Lover and rival. He grumbled loudly again, the light blush still sticking to his face. It seemed like they were always destined to be rivals. It was only recently that Hikaru confessed to Touya and became lovers but the feelings he had were always there. He stared at the words again and noticed a common element to the two words.

"Hmm? That's strange…"

"What is?" said Touya from behind him. Hikaru shrieked and he quickly scrambled his arms over the piece of paper. He turned around in his chair and glared at Touya.

"Don't you have footsteps!" yelled Hikaru.

"Of course I have footsteps!" replied Touya. "You didn't hear me because you were concentrated on whatever you were reading." Touya narrowed his eyes as he stared at the desk. He wasn't replaying the Kifu, which was over by the goban near Hikaru's bed. And it seemed he stopped halfway to do something else. Whatever it was, it was more important than his Kifu at the moment. "What're you hiding?"

Hikaru nervously looked around, "Hiding? Me? I-I'm definitely not hiding anything."

"You're lying terribly right now." said Touya. Hikaru chuckled nervously as he went to scratch his cheek. He forgotten he was hiding the paper. Touya quickly reached forward and snatched the paper from the desk. Hikaru gasped as Touya suddenly backed away so he could read the paper. He scrambled to his feet and knocked the chair away as he went after Touya.

"Don't read it!" yelled Hikaru. Touya pulled his hand behind him, away from Hikaru's snatching hands. Their faces were inches apart and there was no space between their pressed bodies as Hikaru leaned forward on his toes. The back of Touya's knees hit the edge of Hikaru's bed and they both fell backwards. They landed with a muted thump. Touya became dizzy for a quick second but that was all Hikaru needed to snatch the paper back. He grinned at his small victory and straddled Touya's hips.

"I already read it." said Touya, looking away. Hikaru blinked as he looked down at Touya. He was blushing. Hikaru sighed and tossed the paper aside. "Your handwriting hasn't gotten better."

"Is that all you have to say?" asked Hikaru. "Nothing about what's on the paper?"

"What is there to say?" said Touya, still not willing to meet Hikaru's eyes.

"I get it. You're embarrassed!" Hikaru said with a grin.

"So are you," replied Touya, finally looking into Hikaru's eyes. Hikaru blushed deeply as he looked at the crumpled piece of paper beside him. "Why did you write that?"

Hikaru shrugged, "I was looking at your Kifu then about you then about us as rivals…and then as lovers." Hikaru whispered the last part. Touya was blushing as well. He grabbed the paper and held it in front his face. He looked at Hikaru's handwriting and a smile appeared on his lips. Looking at the words filled Touya with a sense of happiness but he wasn't sure if he was more happy about one word than the other.

"I don't know much English but the word rival and lover are similar." said Hikaru.

"How?"

"The both have the letter L, V and R in them. And it also has those…umm…I think they're called vowels..." Hikaru thought about it. He really did have to search deep. He did remember his sensei going over those particular parts on those rare days he didn't sleep through class.

"Yeah, they're called vowels." said Touya. His knowledge of the English language was infinitely greater than Hikaru's.

Hikaru nodded, "Yeah, vowels. They have the first four of the letters. And you can switch it over to the other word and vice versa and it'll still be rival and lover. So, I just figured that rival is another word for lover. It's like us." Touya looked at the words on the piece of paper again. Leave it to Hikaru to pick something weird out of two innocent words. Nonetheless, Touya smiled as he tossed the paper aside.

"Rivals and Lovers, huh." said Touya softly. "You pick out the weirdest thing. And here I thought you were going to tell me something about Sai."

"Sai? I did say I might tell you about him someday." said Hikaru.

"That was nearly six months ago!"

Hikaru thoughtfully hummed, "Was it really that long ago?"

"Stop playing dense," said Touya, an eyebrow arched. Hikaru grinned as he grabbed Touya's hand and gripped them in his own. Touya blushed still with that agitated look on his features though it had softened considerably when Hikaru grabbed his hands. Hikaru may be dense at times but he did have a way rendering him speechless. Something only a rival and lover could do; someone like Hikaru.

"Alright, I'll tell you one thing." said Hikaru. "Sai would've been happy for us. I just know he would've been happy for me and for you as well." He smiled warmly at Touya. Touya could see a warm reminiscing light in Hikaru's golden eye. If Touya had to give that feeling a color, it'll be butterscotch. Touya smiled then he pointed a finger towards Hikaru's stomach.

"I can feel your stomach growl." said Touya. Hikaru sheepishly grinned as he scratched his head. He lifted himself up from Touya and opted to sit beside him. He stared at the goban near his feet, the Kifu right next to it. He could go back to looking over the Kifu with Touya but why waste a perfectly free evening when they weren't busy with scheduled matches.

"Let's go out." suggest Hikaru as he stood up. He grabbed Touya's hand and pulled him off the bed to his feet. Touya stumbled over his feet as he fell against Hikaru. Hikaru helped Touya right himself. Touya looked at him, offering a smile as thanks. Hikaru returned the smile with one of his own. He leaned down just a bit as he kissed him softly. Hikaru grabbed Touya's hand and led him out his room. Rival and lover. Of course, Touya there was nothing similar to the two words but that didn't mean he didn't like Hikaru's explanation.

To him, rival was just another word for lover; a word that described them just as well as rival did.


End file.
